Wheeler's Offroad HD rear leafs w/ Bilstein 5100's at 1.75"

Update on Page 2

Hi all,

After much research on what lift combination to install, I landed on Wheeler's Offroad HD leafs with Bilstein struts and Bilstein 5100 adjustable shocks set at 1.75" in the front. I also put on 265/75 R16 Michelin LTX M/S 2 tires. Below are before and after photos. The after photo is on a slope, so the rake is a bit exaggerated, and is actually a bit hard to tell if there is any rake at all.

Before:



After:



I will snap a photo on more level ground tomorrow with some different vantage points. I was hoping for a little more rake, but I also currently have ~70 pounds of tools in the bed as well as the stock leaf springs.

Overall, I was very pleased with the experience I had with Wheeler's Offroad and the install ended up being quite easy. Although I was still able to make a few mistakes during the process. Overall install time for fronts and rears was approximately 5 hours.

Anyway, just thought I'd share photos of how mine turned out for others that are looking into it.

 

Nice, I was thinking about this option myself. You have the 5 leaf HD leaf pack from wheelers, right?

 

Thanks, and yes I have the 5 leaf HD pack. Very smooth ride so far. I'll update once I take the extra weight out of the bed, but so far with the upgrade in tires and suspension, ride quality and handling is much better than stock.

 

Looks good. How's the ride?

 

Ride quality is much better than stock from driving around this weekend. I did have ~70-100 lbs of tools in the back as well as the stock leafs which likely softened the ride a bit. I also haven't had it aligned yet, that'll happen this week.

I've taken the tools out now, so we'll see how the ride is effected and I'll report back.

 

I may copy your lift!

 

Yea, I think as long as the leafs don't settle or sag really, than I'll be happy with it. Right now I keep nit-picking at the stance of it, but that's likely all it is. One thing I really like is that this combination of suspension and tires is that it maintains a proportional look, just slightly larger.

I guess this is the best place to pose this question: can I adjust my shackle in order to obtain another 0.25 to 0.5 inches of height in the back?

 

how much lift did you end up getting out of the HD leafs? and what leafs did you have before (2 leaf + overload or 3 leaf + overload?)

 

I actually didn't take any before measurements by mistake, I was too excited to get to wrenching. However, my hub to fender measurements are 23.25" rear and 22.25" front. If I were to try to have an educated guess at it though, here is what I would say:

-Before lift, the truck was sagging just slightly (eyeballing it) in the rear with the cap on.

-After lift, truck is level, with maybe slight forward rake (eyeballing it) with the cap on.

- With Bilstein's at set at the 1.75" level, I would guess that the Wheeler's leaf springs gave me about 2" of lift in the rear coming from stock rear springs distressed by having the cap on for about 7k miles on it.

I have a 2013 TRD Off Road, so I had 2 leafs + 1 overload leaf. And as stated in my previous post, I'm not sure if the shackle can be adjusted to give me slightly more height as I took it off to put the rear springs on and just bolted it back up where it sat when the new leafs were in.

 

Yeah i am about to have the dealer put the 3leaf+overload off a 2014 sport on my brand new 2013 due to significant sagging with only a dirbike in the back so we will see... but the setup you have is probably what i will go for down the road.

 

So here is a picture showing the truck on somewhat level ground, with an empty bed. When the bed is empty it looks like it has some rake to it, when on level ground.



Here is a closeup on the level in front of the truck. The ground is leaning slightly towards the front, so it may be look to have more rake than it actually does.



I guess it's pretty close to level.

The measurement in rear only raised up between 1/4" and 3/8" from the previous measurements posted, but it does look to give it a less level look to it.

Overall, I'm likely just being very nit-picky about the stance of the truck. I debated setting the fronts at 0.85 instead of 1.75, but I think that may be taking this too far.

Any opinions on how it looks? Am I just being neurotic about the stance as I think is a distinct possibility?

Thanks,
Patrick

 

Haha... This is NOT an "approved" method of checking/ensuring the TRUCK is level.

Put the level on the door-sill, or the bed-rail.

 

Yea, I hear that ha. I tried this out at work, but I wasn't parked level. I'll go and snap a pic of it in the bed/bed rail. What I was going for in the picture was how level it appeared to be.

 

Don't expect them to be much better. The 4 leaf packs aren't that great either.

 

So I know this is super blurry, but when the level is on the bed rail portion of my cap, it's exactly level. However, this is with both stock leaf springs in the bed, and some jack stands.



I think that with all this evidence, it's likely that I have a slight rake like I wanted, between 1 and 2 degrees, just not to the extent I was hoping for. This likely sounds odd to most as they're looking the level their rides out and not have rake.

 

did you leave all the leafs in on the wheelers hd pack?

 

Looks about perfect to me.

 

Yep, I left all five leafs in the leaf pack.

 

Thanks for your input. I contacted YotaDan about it, so hopefully he takes a look at the pictures too and gives his input. I think as long as the rears don't really settle, it should be fine. If they end up settling on me, I'll have to lower the front down to the .85 I suppose.

 

Or throw in an AAL

Truck looks good!